Working Papers and Chapters and Reporter Articles

We show that Eurozone bank risks during 2007-2012 can be understood as a "carry trade" behavior. Bank equity returns load positively on peripheral (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy, or GIPSI) bond returns and negatively on German government bond returns, a position that generated "carry" until the deteriorating GIPSI bond returns inflicted losses on banks. The positive GIPSI loadings correlate with banks' holdings of GIPSI bonds; and, the negative German loading with banks' short-term debt exposures. Consistent with moral hazard in the form of risk-taking by large, under-capitalized banks to exploit government guarantees, arbitrage regulatory risk weights, and access central-bank funding, we find that this carry-trade behavior is stronger for large banks, and banks with low Tier ...

This paper examines the broader effects of the US financial crisis on global lending to retail customers. In particular we examine retail bank lending in Germany using a unique data set of German savings banks during the period 2006 through 2008 for which we have the universe of loan applications and loans granted. Our experimental setting allows us to distinguish between savings banks affected by the US financial crisis through their holdings in Landesbanken with substantial subprime exposure and unaffected savings banks. The data enable us to distinguish between demand and supply side effects of bank lending and find that the US financial crisis induced a contraction in the supply of retail lending in Germany. While demand for loans goes down, it is not substantially different for the...